KISSING-THE-FROG SYNDROME
CHAPTER 5: PERSONALITY TRAITS

Here, we will try to help the readers define the type of personality that would fit into the Hiring Manager’s style and the organizational culture!

And we must borrow a lot of theories from the psychologists.

And we can only highlight the personality traits that we use often in order to evaluate the candidate’s suitability for a certain job.  Please treat these traits as check points and reminders rather than biblical assertions, because they are not absolute truths and are very much subject to serious challenges.

Essentially, the various personality traits can be summarized as follows:

• Extravert vs. intravert
• Charismatic vs. ordinary
• Exciting vs. dull
• Fun-loving vs. work-work-work
• Leader vs. follower
• Social vs. individualistic
• Team player vs. loner
• Argumentative vs. accommodating
• Precision vs. general
• Easy-going vs. demanding
• Highly pressurized vs. mediocrity
• Quantitative vs. qualitative
• Facts vs. assertions

Obviously, for different jobs, we will require different personality traits!  For instance, if we’re looking for a CEO of a 200-employee joint-venture organization with full-blown operations in HR, finance, IT, sales, marketing, and a manufacturing plant in the high technology industry selling 50% each to domestic and export markets, then we should be looking for an extravert, charismatic, fun-loving and exciting leader, who has highly developed social and political skills, a team player, a demanding boss and perhaps a quantitative man, who values precise facts and figures, in a highly pressurized environment for delivering the P&L numbers.  Alternatively, if we’re looking for a social secretary of the employees’club within this organization, then we should be targeting different types of animals such as being social, accommodating, general, qualitative and the mediocre non-shining type.  In other words, we must ask the HR Manager or the Hiring Manager to define the core competencies (as described in great depths in Chapter 4).

The key words in these considerations, by all parties concerned, are:

• Compatibility: between the Hiring Manager and the appointee, and between the organization and the appointee
• Balance: within the Hiring Manager’s team and the organization’s teams; this aspect addresses the talents, skills, personality traits, temperament, etc.
• Fit: between the organization and the appointee

In making these personality trait assessments, one needs also to consider the basis of qualities, such as IQ-based or EQ-based.

Hiring people is a risky business, because people are not subjects, and cannot, or should not, be described as such.  There cannot be a high degree of precision. We can only use personality assessments to help us make a decision on people; but one must take the responsibility and rely on one’s experience and judgment to assess the candidates.  We, as the professional recruiter, cannot really guarantee that the fit and match will always be perfect!

If you sack the candidate we recommended to you for selection and decision after a trial period, we cannot be held responsible for this possible mis-match, and you, as the Hiring Manager, must take the responsibility of this hiring decision.

In hiring people in China, one very important issue is the candidate’s integrity.  No personality test can prove or disprove this issue.  Based on our experience, we have found that teachers and party members (or their descendents) tend to have the highest degree of integrity; we surmise that this is because they tend not to teach people to cheat!  Therefore, if you’re in the market for a recruiter, his/her methods of evaluating this issue is of prime importance. 

In summary, personality traits will assist your selection of the right people; but please not forget that hiring people involves certain risks!